Yesterday I secured a mini victory in the impossible mission of sorting out a house with no money, no shops and no tradesman. I found a happily foolproof way of attaching things to 200 year old wars and I went on a little wall-fixing frenzy,
Paintings, prints, masks, the whole kit and caboodle went up on the walls yesterday. I’m most pleased with the mirror below. I put it up there because I thought it would reflect light around the house, something which is important when you only have light coming in from certain directions.
What thrilled me most wasn’t that it worked brilliantly but now when I am in the kitchen and look left, it looks like I have a window where the mirror is. The fascinating thing about my dining room window which you can see in the reflection is that the garden outside is not my own by my neighbours.
For some totally unknown Georgian or Victorian reason, the row of houses are all in a straight line but the gardens don’t run off at 90 degrees and instead are at a weirdly perpendicular angle and so in my back garden I look up and see my neighbours house on my left whilst from in my house I mostly look out and see my neighbours garden on the right. These are the unexpected things you discover when you live in a house almost as old as the USA.
Yesterday I also had to go to the bank to pay in a cheque. I’ve haven’t been inside a building other than my own for months; I’m very good at keeping inside as my blog shows and I have a very kindly postman who even picks up my letters and posts them or takes them to the sorting office for me.
It also gave me a good excuse to use my fancy mask. This last winter being the first this century where I haven’t been in hospital or an emergency medical facility of some sort without some sort of chest virus or pneumonia like condition, I was well aware of the Coronavirus back in December and got myself this.
It is apparently about the highest grade mask you can get and filters out 99.5% of contaminants and used by a select group including the SAS and those brave doctors in Africa who worked in the field hospitals during the Ebola outbreaks. It has two replaceable filters which over 6 to 8 months fill with carbon from breathing or just from the atmosphere and if you press the central valve, you know when it needs replacing as absolutely no air will come through.
I remember listening to a funny podcast by a comedian who was walking around London and he saw someone with an incredible mask and he said he realised he was suffering from mask-envy and the mask he was envious about turned out to be mine. How nice that you can have fancy cars and private yachts that money can’t buy you everything… especially when what you want is sold out with waiting times of several months.
As soon as I got in the bank I could see the staff staring and when I got to the counter, the lady teller said that she liked my mask and hadn’t seen one like that before. I’m not sure if that counts for being chatted up in these virus ridden times.
I made her laugh as I replied it looks and sounds like something out of Star Wars and then joking that to be honest I feel naked wearing it in a bank without my gun. That pretty much brought the house down and probably says a lot about the dire straights everyone is in and how quiet and unlikely a place my bank is to suffer from an armed robbery. Or maybe that even with a space age mask and no money, I still come over as someone who would never be an armed-robber. Dammit, no-one ever takes me seriously!
Stephen Liddell 
Bank robbers must be losing business, and sleep, these days. Whichever bank they go to rob wearing masks, they will find everyone else wearing masks too. Can be unnerving for bank robbers, don’t you think?
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Poor guys, no-one thinks of them. How is anyone going to take them seriously if we are all wearing masks and joking about robbing banks 🙂
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Great mask! Whose the supplier please?
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It is a JSP Force 8 Half Mask with P3 level filter protection (so high the media don’t even mention it). Cost me £22, I think now they vary in price between about £35 and £40 but either way, it is unlimited use for 6-8 months and you can get replacement filters for it. If it’s good enough for the SAS and WHO doctors then even the Tube shouldn’t be a problem!
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Looks good on you Stephen:)
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That should stop people coming to sit next to me on an empty tube train 🙂
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An improvement some would say!
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“Give us yer money or we’ll breave on ya!”
🙂
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People would think we were crazy if we said that a year ago 🙂 In London there is a high profile case of a man who spat on two transport staff after telling them he had the virus and they both got ill and died 😦
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No-one’s going to rob your bank, it’s frequented by the SAS apparently. And yes, I think that definitely counts as being chatted up—at a socially appropriate distance, of course.
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I need someone to send me another cheque so I can compliment her on her choice of hand sanitiser spray!
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I can’t stop laughing!!! Everytime I look at this picture if you wearing this mask, it cracks me up!!! I won’t even wear a mask when I go out!! I don’t like them, because my glasses fog up, and it affects my breathing! That mask is Beyond all masks!!!
What is happening now in the UK? Are fewer people getting sick? It is amazing here…no one dies from heart attacks or the regular flu anymore!! Everyone dies from covid! Follow the money! The more who die from covid, the more money states get!
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I know, that is the best mask ever. I might have a 90’s phone, a car from the naughties but I have the best mask money can buy 🙂 A lot less people are currently getting sick in and near London but a lot more people are getting sick elsewhere, generally though things are getting better. Our terrible London Mayor who for weeks was telling us the Tube was safe then reduced the service by 70% and so the trains were still too busy. Now as people are going back to work there still aren’t enough trains and he has been telling people not to use the tube but on the same night sneakily decided to increase the car congestion tax by 30% a day. A family member of a close friend died and they put down Covid on his records just because he was old when his family insist he didn’t have it, he wasn’t tested for it and everyone else in his house didn’t catch it (which makes no sense in small London houses).
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I know quite well that the virus…or its victims is no joke, but I just could not stop laughing about you going into the bank with this contraption…and your thoughts on bank robbers. Well, as far as criminals are concerned, here in the U.S. some states are letting them out of jail just because of the virus, but some small business owners who are good citizens have been arrested for not following the rules set by the local authority. Figure that out!!!
Anyway, the uproar was so immense, that now most Governors etc. when giving more instructions to how to make EVERYONE safe, they add, “But we are not going to arrest you for this,”…fines maybe or taking the business license away. Where will this madness end?
We also had a friend send us a picture with a large plastic container over his head and air holes in the top. It was a joke, of course, but he said, “People just run when they see me coming.” I think they believe we’ve been invaded from outer space.
Things are beginning to open up in the USA…and the beaches here in Florida are seeing big crowds on the weekends. Businesses, such as restaurants, gyms, beauty salons etc. are also opening this week with precautions. If we have physical conditions, as you mentioned, they are asking people to limit contacts. Personal responsibility is the key…since NO ONE likes to be told what to do by the government. Call it the “American Way.” Time will tell how much we suffer from it.
Stay safe. Nancy
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My bank robbing efforts seems to have made everyone laugh which is good. I can never understand how the virus gets into the prisons as they should be the safest place for everyone providing all staff follow the health rules. Yes your American Way we call it the Nanny State with people not liking to be told how to live their lives. I do think it is a bit ‘funny’ to see people out protesting with their guns which for my whole life they say are to allow them to defend themselves against an oppressive government and yet when they think they are being oppressed they don’t even use them!
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Well, the reason the don’t use them…thankfully…is that the Constitution says they are allowed “peaceful assembly.” We laugh at those guys who carry their big weapons because they are just trying to look tough. Hopefully cool heads will be the order of the day…and nothing bad happens. For the most part, the people are fed up with the particular Governors of their states holding them hostage inside their homes. There is a great difference between states…and Florida seems to be the one state with some common sense and reason as we are gradually opening…thus making our shop keepers feel some kind of freedom and self determination. Nancy
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It is a very cool mask..a lot of cybergoth ravers and sci fi fans would love to have a mask like this!
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